“He said that he would be in his office all day. The Manitou Star called. They didn’t say what they wanted. They’ll call back. Hugh Thoms called again. He’s on the job in spite of last night. Max at Bonney’s called in sick and Mrs. Freeman, too. She works this evening, four to nine, but she was sure she wouldn’t make it. Upset stomach.”

Leland Associates handled the store security at Bonney’s by contract.

“What was the matter with Max?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Have you talked to Mike?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay.” Leland drank more of the coffee. Florence was a big girl; in heels she was almost as tall as Leland. She still carried some of her baby fat, which made her clothes fit her badly, and even now her blouse was beginning to creep out of her skirt. At four in the afternoon she could look pretty ragged, and Leland presumed that Hugh Thoms registered that fact along with her frosted hair in forming his poor opinion of her. Hugh was a wonderful old cop, but Leland had to look the other way when he shook his head after Florence left them alone. What Hugh didn’t know was that Florence was drawing the higher salary and that Leland thought she was worth it, or more. She could do any outside job and she ran the office with the assurance of a floor nurse. Leland had tried to talk her into going to college in the evenings, but she thought that that was beyond her—and so it probably was. Her father was a drunk and her mother had drawn into a shell years ago. Florence had become engaged last summer to a young fellow who picked her up on Fridays, a tool-and-die apprentice. They were to be married next year. She had asked Leland to recommend a marriage manual, which he had done, but he did not know if they had read it. He hoped that their luck would hold until she felt more certain about living the life of a woman. The urgency of her telephone conversations and the way she had to take possession of her fiancé when he came to meet her were disheartening. The little she said about the hours she kept suggested that she still needed the effect of long and late Saturday nights to beat down the last of her defenses. She wasn’t a cold person and it happened often. Leland wanted her to have a start in life before she became pregnant. He did not want to see her tripped up by something she would outgrow.

She said, “In the mail today were the usual checks, some ads, a brochure from Piper Aircraft, which I saved, the report, and the expense sheet from Florida—”

“Have they got anything?”

“Shots of him in his bathing suit on the beach. No brace or elastic bandage.”